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Next Year Recruiting Another 3,000 Teachers

Jawa Pos, page 3

The government ascertained it cancelled halting the undergraduate teaching program in the outermost, frontier, and disadvantaged regions (SM3T). Recruitment is immediately undertaken to meet the needs of teachers in the border areas next year. The assurance was delivered by Minister of Research, Technology and Higher Education (Menristekdikti) Muhammad Nasir. For the program’s needs, he allocated Rp 350 billion that could be used to finance 3,000 teachers. This year, the recruitment system is slightly different, where Kemristekdikti not only recruits teachers for needs at the border, but also later to address the needs of productive teachers for SMK.

Of the approximately 3,000 teachers to be recruited, he continued, 500 teachers are especially to meet the needs of vocational teachers. The rest will be distributed to various areas that fit the criteria, namely in 3T areas.

Professor of Yogyakarta State University (UNY) Rochmat Wahab welcomed the abolition of SM3T. According to him, the SM3T program is one of the government’s agenda that favors the people in the periphery. He admitted that there is indeed a shortage of teachers in Indonesia.

Previously, Kemristekdikti decided to stop the SM3T program starting this year. There were several reasons under consideration, among others, SM3T participants do not yet have teacher professional certificates. The next reason is that Indonesia is currently experiencing a shortage of teachers of up to 300 thousand people and SM3T is not a solution, because the average quota of SM3T every year is only about 3,000 people.